LA Weekly Can Kiss My Butt!

Friday night was an excellent night out. We got a bunch of friends together and went to see the movie “Sin City”. I had never read the comics, but many of my uber cool friends had, so they promised me it would be a great flick as long as it stayed true to the comics. All I can say after coming out of that movie is “WOW!” What an awesome film. It was so much fun. The style of the movie, both visually and otherwise was absolutely perfect. It had a very film noir feel, yet still held on to the idea that it was a comic. Awesome… I would recommend it to anyone, unless blood makes you sick, then DON’T go see it… otherwise, go right now. Seriously. You can read the rest later…
So you can imagine how upset I was when I read the LA Weekly’s scathing review of the movie. What a bunch of hooey! The writer of this horrible review states that if you are a woman who enjoys this movie that she “throw(s) up my hands”. Why? Just because the movie has violence in it with obviously ridiculous gender profiling doesn’t mean it can’t be a fun movie to watch. I know, I know, the women’s movement, blah blah blah, but if you ask me, the ability to be a woman and to watch a movie like this and not be offended by it’s intentionally cliche plot is a true sign of being a strong woman. If you get all up in arms over a stupid movie that’s based on a comic book and is so obviously trying to be cliche in its throwbacks to film noir then you have serious problems. I mean, really, how do you leave your house if you can’t handle a movie like this without out having to bash it? It’s petty crap like that that gives real feminists a bad name. The review also says that if you liked the movie you must be either a middle aged man or a pimply face young boy. You know what? That sounds exactly like the type of gender profiling that made the reviewer hate the movie. What a hypocrite! If you ask me, the LA Weekly, while totally awesome for upcoming events, etc. is way too pretentious for it’s own good. Okay, we get it, you’re liberal, but come ON, can’t you just lighten up and enjoy yourselves? I mean, I’m not an advocate for mainstream movies, but the fact that the Weekly seems to be against every single one of them (although they advertise them enough, right? I guess money is more important than integrity) just because they are big time movies is stupid. Okay, sorry, I know I’m going off here, but REALLY! Can’t they ever just have fun? I know it’s not Lars Von Trier, and it’s not loaded with secret meaning and exsistential angst, but it was still a fun movie…
I guess what I’m trying to say is, go see the movie. It’s great, no matter what the Weekly says.

Some reviewers suck a lot. Some don’t suck as much. Some rarely suck. But they’re entitled to their opinions, just as you are entitled to disagree with them however vehemently. Sure it can be bothersome to think that the subjectivity of someone like LA Weekly critic Ella Taylor can have a broad negative effect on something you enjoyed so much, but when all is written and printed critics have little effect on whether I see a film or don’t.

After reading your post I grabbed my copy of LA Weekly and cracked it open to Taylor’s review. You call it a bunch of hooey, but she grounds her opinion in a knowledge of motion pictures and I gotta say she makes some good points. Still, I’m certainly not going to let Taylor’s point of view or anyone else’s for that matter stop me from seeing “Sin City.”

But to make the money-over-integrity point about how the L.A. Weekly allegedly “hates” every movie but loves swallowing all the revenue they get from those very same movie ads, think about the alternative. Would you rather they wax glorious about crap films whose ads they run? Where’s the integrity in that? I would rather have an independent review that goes counter to my impressions than some advertorial column that kisses a film’s ass because its ad is helping pay the bills.

Taylor didn’t like “Sin City.” You did. Both opinions are equal in my book.

Will, you are very right, and I agree fully, and I thought of all that before I posted this. I just wanted to rant! :) But thanks for the very fair opinion. And yes, I do appreciate their standpoint on big movies, but at the same time you do have to allow for the fact that they have a reputation to uphold, and in a lot of ways it is, in my opinion at least, a very holier than thou reputation. Which leads me to believe that they will love something based on how cool it is to love it, you know? Anyway, I still think what you wrote is dead on, and thank you for that.

Cindy, I saw Sin City last night and I liked it, too. In parts, it felt really long to me, but overall, I thought it was strangely beautiful.

Yeah, there were a lot of women in thongs, and maybe I think Alexis Bledel should stick to TV in the future, but other than that I found it entertaining. And honestly, that’s all I want for my $12. (Though I still kinda wish I could’ve gone to the exploding robot thing instead of a movie.)

Saw -Sin City- on Friday at 11pm at the Mann’s in Glendale and the place was packed, even then!

If I was a athletic’s judge and this was gymnastics instead of a film, then I would probably rip -Sin City- apart on a few details; but, I won’t. I did feel that since the story was new to a majority of the audience and the execution was ok, that it was worth the $11 ticket price. I kind of liked the novelty of Rourke’s, lantern-jawed character, better than Willis’s vaguely “Butch”/Pulp fiction reminiscent character.

My issue with the review isn’t that the reviewer has a different opinion than mine, it’s that she is blatantly judgmental about the people who she thinks would enjoy this film. What? I dig comics. Clearly I must be a pimply youth and/or a male aging ungracefully. OH WAIT. I’m a young woman who doesn’t make lame ass pseudofeminist excuses about the things I consider entertainment.

Which is kind of my rambling point, I guess. It’s ENTERTAINMENT, people. Stop reading so frigging much into it.

P.S. No offense intended to any of you fine folks. I’m just ranting, and sleep-deprived.

I have to agree with Cindy and Kathleen on this one. The reviewer DID make some good points, but her review came off as a bit too arrogant and judgmental, which didn’t sit well with me.

There were plenty of women in the theatre when I went to see it Friday afternoon, and they didn’t seem to be getting all up in arms over whatever chauvinistic bullshit happened to occur onscreen, they did what a woman is supposed to do and that’s shut up and watch the movie (totally kidding, don’t eat me alive).

Besides, noir’s always had a slight misogynistic edge to it. I’m more worried about the gang of college-age guys sitting behind me who giggled like pre-teen boys whenever there was a breast onscreen.